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Suggestions that can be found being made by (1) Subjectivists, and (2) Objectivists, in audiophile debates


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3 hours ago, davewantsmoore said:

Isn't exactly what he said IMV.

 

No, you are right but I have surmised the group of posters I believe he referring to.

 

3 hours ago, davewantsmoore said:

There is little use or value in telling people directly "how they've been fooled".... it just becomes about people and their feelings (and they don't have fun).

 

Staying on the procedure, or how the product works (or doesn't) .... is both much more neutral and potentially helpful (to other people watching on).

 

I absolutely agree, but realistically how often does this happen?  It's pretty rare to see such posts and if it happens and upsets people then they can report.   Terry's post was in response to @MLXXX who from my experience always plays the ball and remains civil, but has a desire to understand and discuss the underlying theory and whether or not any evidence of the reported experience exists.   I think perhaps people read questions or discussion about a product or reported performance of that product as a personal assault on them, but really how often is that the case here?  Maybe the mods to a blazing fast job of cleansing I dunno!?

 

 

3 hours ago, davewantsmoore said:

That being said, I do think many need to drink a cup of concrete (harden up).

 

I agree, people keep referring to this supposed toxic environment, but this forum by and large seems very civil and polite.  I am active on other forums that are far more robust in what's considered acceptable.   I think it would be really useful if people didn't assume that a debate or discussion is a personal assault on them because they think a particular way.

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1 hour ago, rocky500 said:

The problem is they bleed over to every other thread.

As with with some other forums they have separated them, so you can decide if you want to read them or not.

 

So again I ask, how do they stop each section from just becoming an echo chamber?  

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13 hours ago, muon* said:

It's also a fact that our brains operate on different wave lengths when under test conditions like DBT's.

 

Just one of many confounding variables.

 

Another thing is perception, our brains don't operate exactly the same as each others, and what one person can reliably pick in blind testing another person may not. So we have to rely on a testing method that includes far more possible confounding variables than when the same form of testing is acceptable in other areas like pharma testing.

 

Sure DBT's all we have, but It's pretty damn crappy from a scientific point of view IMO.

 

I think I understand more now what you were referring to in the other thread re DBT, and you are correct in that the methodology has a range of potential flaws and pitfalls.  Only thing I would suggest is context is important,  and ultimate scientific rigour is not necessary for an enthusiast to use it to their advantage.  I just simply see it as a way of removing variables from the evaluation process.  As a topical example I ran a few different sessions with USB cables in the UK, it was pretty easy to orchestrate by using a high quality headphone system and some office dividers in a room with 2 adjoining rooms.  In this example in the end we settled on an ABX  testing approach simply to see if folks could reliably identify differences.

 

It was really fun by the way, bringing some audio enthusiasts together to the testing, and I think we all learnt something, made some new friends and then moved on with life!  No white papers and no sheep stations...

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3 minutes ago, POV said:

 

So again I ask, how do they stop each section from just becoming an echo chamber?  

Give the reader a choice where it wants to spend his time. It's pretty easy. As shown in other forums and on here it does not seem to work well when they intermingle.

 

Just was reading online about Bullies and the thing a lot of people say is a long the lines of toughen up.

Have you ever been told to just "toughen up" when someone bullied or said something disrespectful to you? How did you feel?

 

Just mentioning this to give others food for thought.

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3 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

Give the reader a choice where it wants to spend his time. It's pretty easy. As shown in other forums and on here it does not seem to work well when they intermingle.

 

Yeah I understand how it would work, but wouldn't the net outcome be that the discussions are just like minded people agreeing!?  I don't know which forums you are referring to by the way, so not doubting that it could have a positive effect, I'm just curious.

 

I think this forum works pretty well.

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6 hours ago, POV said:

One thing to consider, is that the bullying and harassment concept is not a one way street.  If you look in this very thread THIS post by @TerryO indicates that some forum members, who have a desire to discuss more technical elements of audio reproduction and have a tendency to seek an explanation for reported changes in audio fidelity are not only ruining the forum, but the hobby at large!  Ignoring the fact that Terry (who I have met in person and purchased equipment from) has a financial interest in this arena people flock to like this post and agree with him.  Similarly I could point to a range of posts across various threads suggesting that we should leave the forum and others that denigrate our hearing,  experience, or system resolution.

After my post last night, it is only fair to ask me to consider the alternative viewpoint.  What is it that objectivists find so irritating about subjective commentary? Why do they feel the need to lambast subjective listening experiences? Do subjectivists bring it on themselves?

 

In a way, it is true, they do.  The biggest criticism I can level at the subjectivists is that they are (generally speaking) naive.  In seeking to try to explain their experience, the subjectivist unknowingly (perhaps sometimes knowingly) tramples in the carefully curated garden of the objectivist.  By using pseudo-scientific terms and language deliberately designed to add weight of reason to their stance, the subjectivist can be viewed as provoking a corrective response from a more learned objective audiophile.  

 

We must be careful to distinguish the subjectivist from the marketeer here.  The marketeer deliberately sews the seeds of scientific language in their product spiel to add a sense of believability to what they sell.  Whether the marketeer actually has any basis for their claims can be shrouded in mystery.  The subjectivist may just be caught in marketeers web, perhaps regurgitating what they think to be truthful explanations of what they experience.

 

If the objectivist truly understands this dynamic then what is called for is respectful and empathetic language that aims to convey knowledge to the subjectivist.  The key to this being acknowledgement of the experience as real.  From what I observe on audio forums, this is mostly what happens.  Objectivists do, mostly, respectfully challenge the reasoning of the subjectivist, rather than the experience.  And I absolutely 100% agree that they should, provided they have the knowledge to do so of course.  This is what is required for the furthering of the hobby as a collective.

 

In summary, I think subjectivists need to be mindful of seeking to attribute reason to their experience.  If doing so, an open-minded approach is best, after all sighted bias could be the only reason for the experience.  Subjectivists seeking reason in forums encroach on the objectivists turf.  And when the sometimes naive, probably fallible subjectivist does so, I would hope that the objectivist can respect the individual experience, and help the subjectivist apportion their attribution of reason appropriately. 

 

The key to this happening is mutual respect.

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42 minutes ago, POV said:

I think perhaps people read questions or discussion about a product or reported performance of that product as a personal assault on them

For sure....

 

42 minutes ago, POV said:

but really how often is that the case here?  Maybe the mods to a blazing fast job of cleansing I dunno!?

Why would / should the mods do anything about that? ..... not every instance of "hurt feelings" is worth sympathy.

 

42 minutes ago, POV said:

I am active on other forums that are far more robust in what's considered acceptable.

This is the only forum I post on with my real name.... because IMV most other forums are sh!tholes in one way or another.... so I either lurk, or post short and incognito to ask a specific question.

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44 minutes ago, POV said:

So again I ask, how do they stop each section from just becoming an echo chamber?  

Maybe that's what people want though? It sure does seem that way.

 

On the other hand, how the heck do you demarcate? Call one end the ASR end and the other end the TAS end and put hardliner moderators for each? Ew...

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54 minutes ago, POV said:

 

 

Yeah I understand how it would work, but wouldn't the net outcome be that the discussions are just like minded people agreeing!?  I don't know which forums you are referring to by the way, so not doubting that it could have a positive effect, I'm just curious.

 

I think this forum works pretty well.

 

Here might be an example.

I have played around with USB cables from my PC to Dac and found a difference in my testing here. Some sound better.

I have bought Curious, Mad Scientist, Amazon ones, GhentAudio and others.

 

I have used different combo's over and over. Sold off ones that don't sound as good to me, kept others too.

Now the science Objectivists will tell me this is impossible to sound different unless broken.

 

If I start a thread looking for others that might have a similar experience,I know the thread will leaped upon and fill up Objectivists, normally with the common terms, SnakeOil, Money wasted, You would have to mad to buy into this etc.... and that is being nice on this.

I really don't think they are really looking for a debate, just want to put their way of thinking stamp on the thread by their use of the terms they use.

 

I can say I have done lots of testing over and over sitting here just listening and always come to same conclusion.

 

Now if others read this(maybe not technical minded) , they will not post on this thread as they don't want to appear a fool as they have been told they are.

 

How I see it, they could buy one new, try it out and sell it if it is not for them. I loose not that much on the cables as you just got to look at the prices they sell for on this forum. Even better you can buy 2nd hand and loose almost nothing.

Its not life and death and you might be out of pocket a little but you had some fun in the mean time.

 

Now if the Objectivists did not fill my thread, their might be thousands :) of others that say they can also hear the advantages of some of these cables. The thread will advance and we might get a pattern forming of which ones work better and others might try them out and find the same thing.

While the other thread in tandem can be going on in the objectivists thread and anyone can read that one if they so desire.

 

It seems if you are a objectivist, the is a hard concept to grasp maybe even impossible. :)

 

Currently if I started a thread like that now, how do you think it would go?

 

 

Edited by rocky500
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26 minutes ago, Stereophilus said:

the subjectivist can be viewed as provoking a corrective response from a more learned objective audiophile.  

That's a fairly provocative way to view it.

 

26 minutes ago, Stereophilus said:

This is what is required for the furthering of the hobby as a collective.

It will only help people who are interested to learn something.   Terry is right that there are plenty of people who just want to "compare experiences".

 

26 minutes ago, Stereophilus said:

In summary, I think subjectivists need to be mindful of seeking to attribute reason to their experience.

They won't, as a generalisation (and here we are).

 

... but that doesn't mean that other people can't/won't discuss it.   It isn't necessary to correct the original person... there are 32,000 other people lurking who might benefit, or participate.

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4 hours ago, Old Man Rubber said:

Just for the record, you don't need an appeal to authority to check how many packets these audiophile switches are dropping, you just need a copy of Wireshark.

Of course, but that isn't the only way such a thing could conceivably affect audio playback.

 

In fact, it is almost never posited as the way it affects playback, precisely because you can easily see no change to the data.

 

4 hours ago, Old Man Rubber said:

As for the noise of that Cisco,  what kind of modern day audiophile doesn't have a dedicated network cabinet in their house?

Me... and I ran IT infrastructure teams/projects for 20 years.

 

I have a 8 port switch in a tupperware container literally sitting on dirt under the house.  LOL.

 

4 hours ago, Old Man Rubber said:

We're talking here about wanting the best of everything to ensure audio quality

Network performance makes zero difference to audio quality (unless very faulty network).

 

Electrical issues might cause interference to sensitive audio equipment though.... so I wouldn't let typical computers or network equipment very close to my audio unless that audio equipment was shown to be very immune.

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57 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

Currently if I started a thread like that now, how do you think it would go?

I've seen people post threads saying something like "I'm not interested in whether you think usb cables make a difference or not", or "naysayers are unwelcome here" or something along those lines, and as far as I can recall, those wishes have been respected. It's the other threads where there is not a clear direction where people appear to be asking in earnest for a wide range of opinions where we feel welcome and end up looking like trolls, being labelled as bullies, and so on. Nope, I'm pretty sure you can easily put a simple disclaimer on the opening post of any thread and you will be respected accordingly, AND the mods would be in their right to delete and ban people who don't respect your wishes.

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I've also seen threads like that still get inundated with naysayers, some might get lucky but some still go down the crapper.

Edited by muon*
Damn typo, need coffee!
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24 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

I've seen people post threads saying something like "I'm not interested in whether you think usb cables make a difference or not", or "naysayers are unwelcome here" or something along those lines, and as far as I can recall, those wishes have been respected. It's the other threads where there is not a clear direction where people appear to be asking in earnest for a wide range of opinions where we feel welcome and end up looking like trolls, being labelled as bullies, and so on. Nope, I'm pretty sure you can easily put a simple disclaimer on the opening post of any thread and you will be respected accordingly, AND the mods would be in their right to delete and ban people who don't respect your wishes.

Reading some other forums and this does not work hence they put in different sections. Just have to read the comments and you can see splitting them only seems to upset objectivists for some reason.

 

Maybe it is something in the name why they object to this. :)

 

Edited by rocky500
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29 minutes ago, muon* said:

but some still go down the crapper.


Maybe this is the main piece here?  Perhaps folks have very different thresholds for what they consider to be ‘down the crapper’!?  I generally just don’t see it happen much, even when personal arguments break out threads tend to continue and get back on topic before long.

 

I guess maybe the divide isn’t so much in objectivism vs subjectivism but rather in what folks are prepared to tolerate within a discussion.  Just a thought.

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29 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

Reading some other forums and this does not work hence they put in different sections. Just have to read the comments and you can see splitting them only seems to upset objectivists for some reason.

 

Maybe it is something in the name why they object to this. :)

 


Fair enough, I think it sounds like a boring place to engage in discussion, but perhaps I’m the minority and weeding out folks like me would make the forum better for the majority 

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Guest Old Man Rubber
2 hours ago, davewantsmoore said:

 

I have a 8 port switch in a tupperware container literally sitting on dirt under the house.  LOL.

 

...but you can definitely hear the difference in USB cables?  Righto.

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Guest Old Man Rubber
22 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Was it the same person who said that? I think not.

Maybe not.  The whole argument that the bits don't change but the music will just does my head in.

 

Edit:  it was @rocky500 not @davewantsmoore my apologies.

Edited by Old Man Rubber
Incorrect attribution
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I'm been on the forum a while but am a newcomer to the Great Audio Debate section and TBH, I do intend to depart again, since I feel that the 'Currently drinking' section suits me much better🍷

But I do want to say two heartfelt things. 

 

Firstly, I love hearing people's ideas about what has improved their system, to their ears and in the context of their room, given their personal listening tastes and their existing components.

 

Secondly, people like @davewantsmoore and @Ittaku are genuine treasures on this site IMO,  as they (and others) present well-informed (boring?) reality checks which for certain has saved me an absolute $$$ fortune in resisting the urge to follow every breathless report. Let me double down on that - while I can afford to waste a few $K, here and there, a lot of punters on this site can't, and they could easily end up spending their money in unfruitful directions (in possibly entry-level systems).

 

I hope that every reader on this forum gets exposed to balanced advice in implementing the best possible sound within their own budget. 🙏

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I can't afford a few K here and there (very limited budget), a few hundred is usually impossible....so I focus on making the best of what I have within my budget, and sometimes It's a few small tweaks and well thought out component changes (parts that are part of a component that is, and includes cabling) take me further than replacing a whole component.

 

The tighter the budget the easier it is to stick to it :D

 

I think most people can reason well enough to make informed choices.

Edited by muon*
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